Though he finds it hard to believe that Pittsburgh Steelers rookie right tackle Troy Fautanu will start Sunday in Atlanta to open the 2024 season, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo believes that the prized rookie will be back in the lineup rather quickly.
In a mailbag Monday morning for the Post-Gazette, Fittipaldo dished on the Steelers’ first-round pick, stating that while he believes Fautanu will return to practice Monday, it’s hard to envision the Washington product needing just four practices to get up to speed.
In turn, that would likely mean Fautanu would be on the bench for the season opener, leading to Dan Moore Jr. starting at left tackle and Broderick Jones starting at right tackle for the Steelers against the Falcons Sunday at 1 p.m. on FOX.
“Fautanu told me this week he plans to practice on Monday. I doubt they will start him, though, because he’s missed the past three weeks of practice,” Fittipaldo writes in his mailbag. “So my best guess is Jones will be at RT in the opener and Moore at LT. Jones eventually will be the LT, and it could happen early in the season if Moore gets off to a poor start.
“They won’t wait long to get Fautanu back into the lineup, but I do think he needs more than four practices before getting his job back.”
While it might be a bit disappointing that Fautanu might not be in the starting lineup for the season open after a promising early portion of training camp, it’s a long season. It’s better to have him as healthy and as up to speed as possible before plugging him back into the lineup.
Fautanu played just 25 snaps in the preseason opener against the Houston Texans before exiting with a knee injury, which turned out to be a sprained MCL, sidelining him the last two weeks. In those 25 snaps against the Texans, he had some struggles in pass protection, allowing one sack and a few other pressures.
But the Steelers had reportedly seen enough to plan on starting him against the Falcons, even with the injury, as the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac originally reported. That tune has changed though, with many citing the time missed as a hinderance for Fautanu.
That certainly seems logical, as you don’t want to throw the guy into the fire just a few days after coming back from a knee injury in his rookie season. If Fautanu were a second-year player or older, yeah, it would make a great deal of sense to throw him back into the lineup and roll along.
That’s not the case, though. Fautanu needs some time to get back up to speed, get his legs back underneath him again and get back into the swing of things.
As Fittipaldo wrote, the Steelers won’t wait long. That could be as quickly as Week 2 against the Denver Broncos, depending on how quickly he gets up to speed again. But it sounds like it’s very unlikely that he’s going to be in the lineup for the season opener.
